"
There are not the bad guys on one side and the good guys on the other
" as regards the protection of animals, declared Monday in the Yonne Marine Le Pen, calling for a debate "
without excess
" including hunters and bullfighters.
Read also: Animal protection: 47 personalities sound the alarm
"
Today, these debates seem to be on the table and so much the better,
" welcomed the president of the National Rally, a party around which many defenders of the animal cause gravitate, visiting a refuge for recently mutilated horses.
She praised "
all the initiatives which go in the direction of reconciling all the friends of animals, in which there are also, of course, farmers, hunters
".
However, the debate "
must be able to be approached without excess either on one side or the other,
" added the head of the RN, questioned on her position with regard to bullfighting.
Approaching animal protection "without hypocrisy"
"
Bullfighting is a regional tradition
" and "
a form of brutality
", admitted Ms. Le Pen who asks that minors cannot have access to it.
She also wanted "
that we approach the protection of animals without hypocrisy
", by criticizing the importation of animal furs.
Ms. Le Pen expressed her "
compassion
" towards the owner of the refuge Nicolas Demajean, sympathizer of the RN, victim at the end of August of two attackers, one of whom had cut his left forearm with a billhook, while two ponies had been lacerated with knives and one horse mutilated.
Read also: Matthieu Ricard: "Why we must protect children and adolescents from the cruel spectacle of bullfighting"
Since August, acts of mutilation mainly of horses have been reported all over the territory.
About 200 investigations have been opened but only about thirty cases are considered to be of human nature, according to the gendarmerie.
"
I know the anguish that grips them, I know the suffering which is theirs,
" said Ms. Le Pen, while acknowledging that the public authorities were "doing what is
necessary to try to put an end to this fear
".
Marine Le Pen's last trip during the presidential campaign in 2017 was to an animal shelter.
The animalist vote card, which gathered 2.2% of the votes in the European elections in front of other more publicized lists, presents "
certain similarities
" with that of the vote for the RN, according to a study by the Jean Jaurès foundation published in July 2019.